At the age of 82, I’d love to know if I am Jewish
My roots remain a mystery, but I secretly hope that I will one day prove my Jewish heritage
AM I Jewish? A silly question, I know. Either you are or you aren’t. But it has nagged at me for decades. Let me explain. There is a trail of evidence to suggest I might have German Jewish roots. If so, it would fill me with stubborn pride at a time when antisemitism is on the march again. But the trail has gone cold. I need help, and it is possible that the JC’s readers here or abroad might have some ideas. All suggestions gratefully received.
Here is what I know for sure. My grandfather came from Wiesbaden to Brighton well over a century ago and married an English woman. He died when my mother was young. Opa Schreiber was nominally a Catholic, though my mother (who herself died 60 years ago) told me he had no interest in the Church; indeed actively despised it. But she remembered his friendships within the secular Jewish community in Brighton.
Schreiber is overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, a Jewish name. Many Jews in Germany “converted” to Christianity in the late 19th century, to avoid the antisemitism already brewing in their homeland. Who could blame them? Others moved to this country. Could Grandfather have done both?
So, what if he really was Jewish, and — if so — did grandmother convert to Judaism? Together, those “ifs” would make my mother Jewish. It would make me Jewish, too. But it is hard to see how I can find out now. The Wiesbaden city archives did not survive the War. So heaven knows whether any of “my” German Schreibers (Jewish or otherwise) survived the conflict. As for my English Schreiber line, it died with mother back in 1964.
Why should I bother with this? I know stereotypes, even positive ones, are foolish. But I have long been attracted to the Jewish sense of community; the intelligence, the art and culture, the determination to survive and prosper. And the determination to play a proud and active part in the wider community. The groups I have known fitted this attractive stereotype more than adequately.
Partly because of my advanced years (I’m 82), and partly because of the current nasty popular mood, I’m determined to solve the mystery soon. And, yes, I would be pleased to end my search identified as Jewish. After all, I’ve lived happily most of my life in largely Jewish environments. Brought up in an East End socialist family. Spent decades in Hampstead, Soho, Brighton and New York. Reported fondly from Israel for the JC and national papers.
Yet it was only when I sat in the Negev in 2006, in the home of my closest friend, an Anglo-Israeli translator and political writer, monitoring the reporting of that year’s war by English and American television channels, that I finally became aware of the scale of their antiIsraeli ignorance, bias and often bile.
A decade later, I was to report bitterly on Corbynite entryists then turning the Labour Party — once my Labour Party — into a haven for Jew baiters. A couple of generations ago it was Mosley’s marching thugs denouncing “Yids”. Suddenly, shamefully, it was Labour’s lumpenmarxists abusing “Zios”. The insulting names change but the target remains the same. I knew I would rather stand with the “Zios” than their baiters.
But what can I do if my roots remain a mystery? I could, I suppose, convert, as one of my favourite cousins did. Hers was a sincere conversion. Today — alongside her husband — she is a pillar of their synagogue and an active figure in their community. Why can’t I follow her admirable example?
The reason is simple. Conversions are religious. I am an atheist. I could seek out an accommodating rabbi to fiddle the job. (There are more of them around than many care to admit.) But I simply could not build a new life on a lie.
One final turn of the screw. In the mid-1950s, when anti-German feelings were still strong here, my progressive parents had made it possible for me to attend a Gymnasium (grammar school) in Hesse for two summers. I felt at home there instantly and made close friends. (Ulrika Meinhof was a star pupil, but that is another story.) My comrades and I wandered in the Westerwald, sang romantic hiking songs, swam naked in the Lahn and generally behaved as if we were spoiled children of the Weimar Republic.
But every now and then I looked at my friends and shuddered, wondering: “Did your parents play a part in the gassing of my — possibly Jewish — relatives?” Or “Did my — possibly ethnic German — relatives play a shameful part in promoting the Holocaust?” I still wonder. It’s enough to give anyone a split personality.
Are you surprised that I need some answers?